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The last thing Aramis had been expecting was to be called into an audience with the king. A nervous tingle races down his spine as the king dismisses his advisers and the other Musketeers. The look Athos gives him as he passes made Aramis even more nervous.
And then he is alone with the king and the queen and the uneasy sinking feeling in his stomach.
“This is the one?” the king asks, but Aramis realizes the question was directed at Anne, not at him. Still, it does nothing to ease the rapidly growing fear that the king knew the truth about his wife’s child.
“Yes,” Anne replies simply. The king approaches Aramis, who keeps himself bent forward in his bow, then circles him slowly.
“We can see why you were attracted to him,” the king says from behind Aramis. Aramis feels his cheeks flush, but with embarrassment or dread, he isn’t entirely sure.
“He is more than just a pretty face, Louis,” Anne chides. She steps forward now too, fingers curling under Aramis’s chin to straighten him upright. He does his best to keep his expression blank, but Anne is smiling at him, gentle and caring with an edge of amusement.
“Majesties?” he finally manages to ask, his mouth dry. The king is now standing next to his wife, peering intently at Aramis. He has never felt so exposed before, and he has to resist the urge to shift in place.
“Anne speaks very highly of you,” the king says.
Aramis looks between the two monarchs, before settling back on the king. “I am flattered, Your Majesty.”
Anne’s hand presses against his chest, directly over her crucifix, and he can’t stop his sharp inhale, remembering the feeling of her gentle fingers along his skin and the way she toyed with the hairs on the back of his neck. She is so close, he can smell her perfume, but the king is just as near, and Aramis isn’t entirely sure what is happening any more.
“How far would you be willing to go, for crown and country?” the king asks, his hand coming to rest on top of Anne’s, fingers lacing so Aramis can feel the tips.
He has to swallow twice before he can find words. “I would die for Your Majesties,” he says, trying to infuse it with as much truth and loyalty as he can muster.
The king smiles, lazy and amused. “Yes, you’ve quite proven what lengths you would go to in order to defend us. That was not the question we were asking.”
His heart is racing; surely they can feel it pounding, underneath their hands. The urge to flee is overwhelming, but his feet won’t move. “I’m not sure I understand, sire.”
Anne’s other hand comes up to Aramis’s cheek, and he feels his eyes flutter closed for just a moment, before they’re once again riveted on the king, wide in fear. But the king is still smiling and giving him an expectant look, and Aramis thinks he is starting to understand.
“Louis and I have long had an arrangement,” Anne says, thumb brushing his cheek gently. “It is not uncommon, in marriages such as ours. As long as we produce a child together, there is little care of who else we may choose to entertain.”
The king makes a face that looks like a child disgusted by his vegetables. “And while we love Anne dearly, we do not love her in that way. It is common knowledge that we rarely lie together, and I grow weary of the ruse.”
“It may never be known that you are the father of my child,” Anne says, carefully and pointedly, and Aramis had never expected such an open acknowledgement, not after their encounter in the hall after the official announcement. “You are a Musketeer; brave and loyal. We can think of no better man.”
“What is it that you ask of me, Your Majesties?”
The king looks delighted once more, like he was just given a new horse or some other prize he had long awaited. Anne speaks before he can, though. “You have given us so much already, dear Aramis. What we ask of you now, neither of us wishes you to feel imposed to give us.”
“Sleep with us,” the king cuts in, impatient as always. “Both of us.”
Aramis rocks back in surprise, their hands falling from his chest as Anne gives the king a scolding look. “I—”
“Do not think of this as a request from your king and queen,” Anne puts in. “When I came to you at the convent, it was not as the queen, and we come to you now as people who are very much attracted to you and would desire the pleasure of your company.”
Aramis’s head is spinning; he has known for months that he was in love with the queen, and the incident at the convent had been a mistake that he shouldn’t have made. But now, both monarchs are standing in front of him, beseeching him, and Aramis is filled with the heady rush of being desired. Laying with men is an infrequent habit of his, one of his many sins, an exception he only makes for the most remarkable of men. The king certainly falls into this category, for all that he sometimes acts like a short-tempered toddler.
“We trust your discretion on this matter,” Anne adds. “And you would be free to end this when it pleased you.” The last part seems to pain her, and with the new knowledge he has been granted, he doesn’t hesitate to step forward and touch her cheek lightly.
“My heart has been yours for some time now, Your Majesty,” he tells her. Aware that the king is still waiting for an answer of his own, Aramis turns and reaches for his king, resting a tentative hand on his shoulder. The king—Louis—beams, and Aramis feels his heart twist and knows he won’t leave them. “And my loyalty has been yours from the start,” he adds.
They’re both smiling now, but it relieves Aramis to see that they now look as nervous as he feels. He grins at them, his roguish devil-may-care grin that has earned him the company of countless women. Both king and queen step towards him, and he embraces them both, feeling whole for the first time outside of the company of his brother Musketeers.